Skip to main content
P&A Faculty & Research / Center for Advanced Materials

Center for Advanced Materials

Condensed matter and materials physics addresses the fundamental properties of solids and liquids, and of all subfields of physics, has generated the largest number of practical applications that have dramatically changed our lives in recent decades. Materials necessarily underpin virtually any technology, since every device must be made from substances that possess favorable properties for a given task. Materials research also has generated numerous breakthroughs in cutting-edge, fundamental physics, such as the quantum Hall effect, colossal magnetoresistance and high temperature superconductivity. It is therefore widely recognized that whoever controls the synthesis and discovery of novel materials generally controls the evolution of basic research into their properties and, ultimately, their successful application in advanced technologies.

The Center for Advanced Materials seeks to establish a comprehensive, multidisciplinary and transformative research program to investigate novel electronic materials, bringing together experts from across Kentucky to pursue basic research as well as potential applications. Our current and planned research emphasizes the synthesis of novel materials in both bulk-single-crystal and thin-film forms having unusual electrical transport, magnetic and optical properties. Materials already under investigation include transition metal oxides, magnetic clusters, inorganic/organic hybrid systems, single-molecule magnets (SMMs), and spintronics-related devices. The Center also implements an integrated graduate training program that emphasizes both materials synthesis and characterization techniques covering a broad spectrum of materials and experimental probes.

The Center for Advanced Materials, which is located in Physics-Chemistry building on UK campus, is recently awarded a multi-million dollar grant via Kentucky NSF EPSCoR. This grant will significantly enhance our infrastructure necessary for a world-class materials center that will enable us to conduct comprehensive materials (both inorganic and organic) research including sophisticated synthesis of both thin films (or heterostructures) and bulk crystals and characterization at extreme conditions such as high magnetic fields, ultra low temperatures and high pressures.  It comprises of faculty members from College of Arts and Sciences and College of Engineering at University of Kentucky and from three other participating institutions, Center College, Berea College and Morehead State University.

Center Seminar by both Center scientists and prominent international researchers will be held regularly.

For more information, please contact Professor Ambrose Seo at a.seo@uky.edu.

Center for Advanced Materials Personnel

Joseph Brill
University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy
Physical properties of low-dimensional solids, density waves
Lance De Long
University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy
High-field, low-temperature and high-pressure material properties; physics of patterned superconducting and magnetic thin films
William Crummett
Centre College Department of Physics
Dielectric properties; neutron scattering
Amer Lahamer
Berea College Department of Physics
Mossbauer effect
Kwok-Wai Ng
University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy
Tunneling and scanning probe studies of materials
Sean Parkin
University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy
X-ray diffraction of materials
Douglas Strachan
University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy
Synthesis and properties of nanoscale conductors
Haluk Karaca
University of Kentucky Department of Mechanical Engineering
Processing-microstructure-mechanical property relationships in metals, (ferro)magnetic and conventional shape memory alloys
Yang-Tse Cheng
University of Kentucky Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering
Materials engineering
Kaul Ribhu
University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy
Condensed matter theory
Jack Selegue
University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry
Organometallic compounds
Beth Guiton
University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry
Inorganic materials, TEM
Todd Hastings
University of Kentucky Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Nano-scaled materials and opto-electronic devices
Bill Grise
Morehead State University Department of Industrial & Engineering Technology
Dr. Vijay P. Singh, Professor
Director, Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CeNSE)
Earl Parker Robinson Chair in Engineering
University of Kentucky Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ambrose Seo

University of Kentucky Department of Physics & Astronomy

Thin-films and heterostructures of strongly correlated materials; physical properties of complex oxides